t that
elapsed before he spoke again.

"'I beg a thousand pardons,' he said. 'I ought to have known better
than to take a lady too literally at her word. Permit me to remind you,
however, that the circumstances are too serious for anything in the
nature of--let us say, an exaggeration or a joke. You shall hear what I
propose, without further preface.' He paused, and resumed his figurative
use of the fly imprisoned in his hand. 'Here is Mr. Armadale. I can let
him out, or keep him in, just as I please--and he knows it. I say to
him,' continued the doctor, facetiously addressing the fly, 'Give me
proper security, Mr. Armadale, that no proceedings of any sort shall be
taken against either this lady or myself, and I will let you out of the
hollow of my hand. Refuse--and, be the risk what it may, I will keep you
in." Can you doubt, my dear madam, what Mr. Armadale's answer is, sooner
or later, certain to be? Can you doubt,' said the doctor, suiting the
action to the word, and letting the fly go, 'that it will end to the
entire satisfaction of all parties, in this way?'

"'I won't say at present,' I answered, 'whether I doubt or not. Let
me make sure that I understand you first. You propose, if I am not
mistaken, to shut the doors of this place on Mr. Armadale, and not
to let him out again until he has agreed to the terms which it is our
interest to impose on him? May I ask, in that case, how you mean to make
him walk into the trap that you have set for him here?'

"'I propose,' said the doctor, with his hand on the railway guide,
'ascertaining first at what time during every evening of this month the
tidal trains from Dover and Folkestone reach the London Bridge terminus.
And I propose, next, posting a person whom Mr. Armadale knows, and whom
you and I can trust, to wait the arrival of the trains, and to meet our
man at the moment when he steps out of the railway carriage.'

"'Have you thought,' I inquired, 'of who the person is to be?'

"'I have thought,' said the doctor, taking up Armadale's letter 'of the
person to whom this letter is addressed.'

"The answer startled me. Was it possible that he and Bashwood knew one
another? I put the question immediately.

"'Until to-day I never so much as heard of the gentleman's name,' said
the doctor. 'I have simply pursued the inductive process of reasoning,
for which we are indebted to the immortal Bacon. How does this very
important letter come into your possession? I can't